In his description of the piety of Audrey of Ely, the Venerable Bede mentions that she didn’t bathe in hot water except in preparation for the three greater feasts of the year — Easter, Pentecost and Epiphany (Bede, HE IV:19). While it is no surprise that Easter and Pentecost were the primary feasts of the year, ranking Epiphany among the top three is a bit of a surprise.The Nativity and most of the other feasts of the year were celebrated in the 7th century, but apparently second rate compared to epiphany.

Today, Epiphany is the celebration of Christ’s manifestation to the gentiles — the three magi who coming bearing gifts. However in Bede’s time Epiphany was the celebration of the baptism of Christ. When the Holy Spirit utters the words “This is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased” Christ is manifest to the world. From Bede’s homily on Epiphany we can see that the lectionary used at Wearmouth-Jarrow called for Matthew 3:13-17, the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan.

If we turn to Bede’s homily on Epiphany we gain more insight into how Epiphany was viewed in his time.

“Now there follows: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Let it be [so] now, for it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice’. … ‘Let me now,’ he says, let me now be baptized by you in water as I have ordered, and afterwards you will be baptized by me in the Spirit, as you are asking. So it is fitting that we give an example of all justice, [which is] to be fulfilled, namely, so that the faithful may learn that no human being can be perfectly just apart from the waters of baptism, and that the ceremony of life-giving regeneration is necessary for all, no matter how innocently and justly that they may live, when they recognize that although I was conceived and born by the working of the Holy Spirit, I was subject to a second birth, or rather that I consecrated the bath of baptism for them. None of the more important people should scorn to be baptized in the forgiveness of sins by my humble ones, when they remember that the Lord, who was wont to forgive sins as he baptized in the Holy Spirit, lowered his head to be baptized in water at the hands of his servant.’ ” (Martin and Hurst, p. 115-116)

The editor is indicating that all of this is quoted form somewhere else but doesn’t say where. The editors suggest that he is quoting Jerome in part, but not all of it. Where ever it comes from, probably part Bede and part quoted, it does suggest that the baptism was considered second nativity and perhaps more important than the first.

Bede then goes on to make an interesting link to the relationship between Christ and Adam, Adam being expelled with his wife, and eventually to Christ taking the church as his wife.

“The second Adam on this day points out that through the waters of the bath of rebirth the flickering flame by which the cherub guardian blocked the entry into paradise when the first Adam was expelled would be extinguished. Where the one went out with his wife, having been conquored by the enemy, there the other might return with his spouse (namely the Church of the saints), as a conqueror over his enemy. Further, the Father of the age to come, the Prince of peace, might grand to those redeemed from sin the better gift of immortal life, which the father of this present age, the prince of discord, lost after he was sold, together with his descendants, into the slavery of sin.” (Martin and Hurst, pm 116-117)

“Now what sort of flaming sword it is guarding the doorway to paradise has been extinguished for each of the faithful at the font of baptism, and it has been put away so that they may return. For the unfaithful, however, it remains always immovable, and also for those falsely called faithful thought they have not been chosen, since they have no fear of entangling themselves in sins after baptism, it is as though the same fire has been rekindled after it has been extinguished, so they they may not merit to enter the kingdom that they try to obtain with a deceitful and duplicitous heart — with the fraudulent tooth of a serpent rather than the simple eye of the dove, which the Lord shows that he loves very much his Church when he says in the song of love, ‘Behold, you are beautiful, my friend, behold you are beautiful. Your eyes are those of doves.’ (Sg. 1:15)” (Martin and Hurst, p. 120)

Bede goes on to quote the Song of Songs three more times, amid the seven examples of virtues of the dove. All of this fits well with what Bede writes of St. Audrey. First bathing being tied to the feast of Christ’s baptism. Second, to the imagery of Audrey as a bride (and mother) of Christ. The use of the song of songs is recalled in Bede’s hymn on Audrey, even if it is not quoted.

So today, Pentecost, is one of the three primary feasts in Anglo-Saxon times and certainly a major feast today. Pentecost is the celebration of the birthday of the church, recorded in Acts, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, Mary his mother, and the others in the upper room. I hope you were able to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, or Whitsun, with your church family. I wonder how many sermons today discuss the confluence of the birth of the church with Mother’s day.

References:

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Lawrence Martin and David Hurst, eds. Bede the Venerable Homilies on the Gospels: Book One Advent to Lent, Cistercian Publications, 1991.

Beware: Arbitrary definitions to follow

Technically speaking the words kingdom and realm are interchangeable. As I work on these posts on lost kingdoms it occurred to me that I have a few planned posts on entities that really fall in a gray zone, either because we have little proof they existed or because their location is unfixed. So what is the right term for them? Proto-kingdom? Pseudo-kingdom? Principality is no better. District really isn’t either since district implies a regularized grid or plan. Petty kingdom is just weird and one of the entities I’ll be writing about wasn’t petty, if it existed. So realm is the term I’ve decided on.

A realm refers to an area ruled by a king, perhaps passed on to his successor, or not. There were certainly many transient realms. Indeed, one of the differences between realms and kingdoms are that kingdoms tend to remain together even when the whole dynasty changes.

A kingdom may be absorbed into a larger kingdom, but even then it tends to retain its organizational structure and identity. Lindsey remained a distinct unit even when completely assumed by either Northumbria or Mercia. Its still a district or county today.

Some realms had a core kingdom in addition to a swollen tribute area. “Northumbria” is a realm until 679 when Ecgfrith assumed direct rule over Deira for the final time and the southern border was set by arbitration. Bernicia is the core kingdom of the realm of Northumbria. Even then the term Northumbria probably didn’t consistently exist. It king would have simply been called King of the Angles/English in the north.

So comments or suggestions?

Well, May 5th is Heavenfield’s first birthday. It has been a great year with 17,206 actual visitors to the site and quite a few more I know reading along with syndicated readers.

I think I’ll celebrate the anniversary with a run down of the top 5 posts of the last year with their hit count. I should point out that WordPress does not count visits by the site owner.

Out of 154 blog posts, these are the top 5:

1. Martyrdom: Red, White, and Blue (275)
2. Which Mary? (254)
3. You know Easter is coming early when… (206)
4. Lindisfarne and St. John the Beloved (199)
5. St Aethelthryth of Ely: An Enduring Saint (197)

None of these got more than 50 posts within their first 2-3 days so these are posts that have turned up almost daily in search engine hits. There are another about 5-7 that also turn up nearly daily in search hits. Its been fun the last couple months watching them jockey for position to finish. At least only one (#3) was found by off topic search words like ‘green beer’!

Excluding the ‘about me’ page, Early Medieval Kings has been by far the most popular web page with 509 hits. Going along with this, early medieval kings is by far the most common search term to find Heavenfield.

Last but certainly not least a big THANK YOU to my two biggest referrers: Dr Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard and Jonathan Jarret at A Corner of Tenth Century Europe!

Now that the semester is winding down to a close over the next week I hope to get back to blogging on a more regular basis. Brendan is getting impatient to move on…

From Bede’s History III.12 (McClure and Collins, p. 129)

“It is related, for example, that every often he [King Oswald] would continue in prayer from matins to daybreak; and because of his frequent habit of prayer and thanksgiving, he was always accustomed, whenever he sat, to place his hands on his knees with the palms turned upwards. It is also a tradition which has become proverbial, that he died with a prayer on his lips. When he was beset by the weapons of his enemies and saw that he was about to perish he prayed for the souls of his army. So the proverb runs, ‘May God have mercy on their souls, as Oswald said when he fell to the earth’”

This passage has attracted the most attention for his palms up posture. I’ve read here and there some odd talk about it reflecting pre-Christain postures. Nonsense… look around your local church and then look at ancient murals and art and you will see palms up postures throughout.

What has attracted my attention is the claim that he prayed continually from matins to daybreak. This is one sleep deprived king! Did he have insomnia? Matins is supposed to be the midnight office and daybreak is lauds. Obviously, matins can’t be really midnight. In reality various monasteries and churches set matins at various times of the night. It is likely that each monastic system had a schedule set for daily prayer, and it was practiced by members of the house(s) where ever they were. It seems likely that Oswald followed the schedule from Lindisfarne, led by a personal priest. This also suggests that the hours of the office were done somewhere within Bamburgh’s enclosure so that it was easily accessible to Oswald.

It is one of the mysteries of Oswald’s reign that his personal priest is not mentioned. We know that his brother Oswiu had personal priests — Utta, later Abbot of Gateshead, and Eadhead, later Bishop of Lindsey– and his son Oethelwald had Caelin, brother of bishops Cedd and Chad, as his personal priest. All of these priests were from the Lindisfarne family, and as the founder of Lindisfarne it is almost certain that Oswald would have had an Irish priest by his side. There wouldn’t have been any English priests trained until at the very earliest late in Oswald’s reign. Given that Bede is promoting the close relationship between Oswald and Bishop Aidan I suppose its not surprising that his personal priest, who really couldn’t be Aidan, isn’t mentioned.

One of the things this calls to mind is that first of all, Oswald was surely, remarkably pious. After an evening in the hall with his court, getting up before dawn for prayer is impressive. It may also be the only time during the day when a king could quietly think. Once the rest of the court awakes, the day’s business will begin and by evening his hall will be full of his retainers. It also occurs to me that this formal position, with palms turned up, indicates that Oswald was a rather impressive, kingly figure otherwise these odd details would not have been remembered.

This also brings up Oswald’s understanding of Latin. How many kings would go daily to hear the office if they couldn’t understand it. Granted, he may have just wanted to be present when what he considered to be sacred rites were preformed and to pray silently to himself. Still it all suggests quite a lot of formation on Oswald’s behalf done by Iona before he returned and afterwards fostered by the monks of Lindisfarne.